1. Field of the Invention
The technical field of the invention is multimedia.
2. Description of the Prior Art
At present, with the use of devices including digital cameras, people are producing more and more multimedia data. They wish to be able to share this data with other persons (family, friends, sport team, working group) and comment on their data in real time.
A large number of web sites enable the sharing of multimedia contents. However, the consultation of multimedia documents thereon is not interactive.
Blogs, a catch-all term derived from the contraction of web and log, also enable the sharing of multimedia contents. Blogs are Internet sites for free and occasional self-expression in the form of texts, hypertext links and/or images published as and when contributors see fit and in reverse chronological order, often by a single author and on a personal basis. Personal blogs enable a person to display his ideas, his moods day by day, and visitors can post their reactions to the content of the blog. Blogs are very successful, to the point that several search engines are dedicated to them (for example Technorait, Feedster, Sphere). It is estimated that the number of blogs doubles every six months and that several tens of millions of them exist. The most widespread use of the blog is the on-line diary or the travel journal. Some persons create blogs to share their passions or to publish amateur or professional photographs. There are also opinion blogs maintained by professional journalists or politicians, as well as corporate blogs. Blogs can be updated from mobile terminals. A blog generally contains the following elements:                messages (posts) in reverse chronological order;        the archives of the blog, which can be consulted by date;        the list of external links (blogroll), this list showing the mutual recognition by the authors of their belonging to the same virtual community;        the RSS (Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication) feed supplying a description, structured by tags, of the various elements of a blog: titles of posts, content, date, author, links.        
Blogs have a number of drawbacks. They can in theory be consulted by anyone browsing the Internet and generally do not provide for the creation of closed or conditional access virtual communities. The blogger can assume a false name and pseudonyms are frequently used. The blogger is not visible and in a face-to-face relationship with his public. What is more, the vast majority of blogs do not enable real time interaction. Moreover, the multimedia documents in them are not properly protected against illegal copying.
The Windows Live Spaces platform from Microsoft links the old functions of the old MSM Spaces platform to the MSN Messenger instant messaging software, a Friends Explorer module enabling users to invite their friends and to contact the friends of their contacts. Windows Live Spaces enables the creation of personal spaces and personal communities with conditional access: the default parameter settings limit to the Windows Live Messenger list of friends the right to access the space of the author of the web pages, who can thus specify who can contact him, who can consult his profile and who can view the content of his space.
There are also known Internet videoconference systems (for example WebeX Meeting Center, Microsoft Live Meeting, Citrix GoTo Meeting, Groove Virtual Office, eZmeeting), these systems having many applications, for example tele-engineering, distance learning (e-learning), work meetings. The videoconference is an audiovisual teleconference service providing real time bidirectional transfer of voice and animated color images as well as computer data between groups of users located in at least two different places, in point-to-point mode or multipoint mode. VRVS (Virtual Room Videoconferencing System), for example, enables reservation of virtual conference rooms on Mbone or in the H323 protocol. An H323 terminal is equipped with software such as Netmeeting from Microsoft or Ekiga, for example.
Videoconference systems have drawbacks. In particular, multimedia documents cannot be viewed outside a session, the session having to be open before the publication of multimedia documents.
The applicant has developed two applications for interactive television over IP: AmigoTV and MyOwnTV.
The interactive television technology called AmigoTV enables the user to share opinions and emotions within a community. If a number of friends are watching the same television program, using AmigoTV, they can comment live, their voices passing over the Internet, six persons being able to communicate at the same time. To discover who is connected to his television and the channel he is watching, it suffices to use the remote control to consult a menu where all this information is shown in real time, the presence of the members of the community being indicated by overlaid avatars. AmigoTV also enables sending of images and sounds chosen from a catalog, to illustrate one's mood in response to a televised event.
MyOwnTV is another triple play offer centered on the user, enabling users to share multimedia contents (photographs, videos) within a restricted circle, an integrated videophone service providing, in the future, for dialog within the virtual community. The multimedia contents are viewed by the members of the community using a television/decoder combination. With this solution, there is no real time interaction and the mobile environment is not taken into account. Data is protected by authentication and there are no means for controlling the use of the documents and in particular copying thereof.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,607 describes a device and a method for displaying and sharing images via the Internet. Digital images (photos or videos) are sent to a server, an electronic mail being sent automatically to a list of persons selected by the sender of the images, this automatic mail informing those persons of new images deposited on the server. Information such as IP address, telephone number, description of the images can be attached to the images sent to the server. If a person clicks on an image, they initiate an IP telephone conversation with the author.
The invention aims to propose a service enabling sharing of multimedia contents within a community, this service not having the drawbacks of the existing services.